The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1887-12-29

communion u
one who had
departed the plain living. A bunker in
good standing obliged his neiRhbor by
buying his wheat and was astonished to find
himself suddenly outside the faith, con-
demned as '.grain speculator."
A Mennonite mechanic, Of inventive
ability, was offered pecuniary help, and land
and buildings, to remove his large works to
richer town, where his receiving and ship
ping facilities would be much. to his advan-
tage; but the keen, worldly people of his
native village bethought to detain him
among them by whispe ring to his brethren
that he ought not at least to remove "for
hire" So the solemn, unshaved elders sat
on his case and decided that he might
remove, but must not accept any subscrip-
tions or contributions for doing 80, and 50
held him a captive till he died.
But harder than any was the case Of the
good and modest bunker widow. Frederica
Arnold, who went to Illinois to visit her sis
ter. and, when about returning to Maryland,
stopped at the only ''store'' in the Illinois
village to buy her child. little Hetty, aged
two, q pair of shoes.
No shoes in the shop would fit the child
but pair of red ones.
The mother beheld these red shoes with
an involuntary perception Of how they
brought out the complement of the child's
bright cheeks and eyes and wheaton hair.
1t was too late to hesitate or reflect, for the
stage was at the door.
So Hetty wore the red shoes back to Mary
land and the bunker zealots saw them.
Next meeting day the mother was expelled
from the sect.
Red shoes were the DEVILS color.
Red shoes betokened sinful heart and
pining after the light colors which were as
sumed by the weeds in the farmers fields.
The little child grew up to be called by all,
in memory of its mothers penalty, Hetty
Red Shoes.
She was wandering child, her mother
feeling keenly the humiliation of her rejec-
ton from fold in which all the Arnolds had
been born and kept, from that immemorial
time when the first Germans, who were
Dunkers, sat down at Germantown, in Penn
sylvania; and conscious of her guilt, she
.ook the child's shoes off and put them in
her cedar chest and made no overtures
for recognition again among her ancestral
people.
Feeling that neglect, somehow. was her
portion in this life, Hetty wandered alone
up the mountain paths and along the flow
ing streams, seldom speaking to any other
child.
Sometimes q saucy country boy, as she
grew up to be graceful and blooming, would
call at her from the top of his wagon of wood
as he came down the mountain:
"Hallool Hetty Red Shoesw
Hetty, at this, would slip into the copses,
among the berry bushes, or hide in the wild
laurel tangles, and the memory of something
red would be recalled to her sense rather
than to her memory, and she would look
down at her bare, scratched feet and see,
perhaps the red line there of the white flesh
scanned over her scars.
The instinct came to her that those feet
had not always been 80 white, but when
and where had they been otherwise?
She asked her mother that question, who
absently:
ut was when you wore the worlds red
shoes"
OF Sundays and love-feast times, and on
baptism days, when the bunker converts
knelt at the margin of the stream and were
dipped and received INTO fellowship, Hetty
saw her mother gazing at their buggies and
Dearborns as they filed down the road to
Brownsville with lost, woeful look in her
eyes; and from every vehicle in which
Dunker family rode there would be intrusive
heads leaning outward, or looking back at
the widow Arnold, who long ago had bought
her child Q pair Of red morocco shoes and
forgot to take them of on the Sabbath day,
and 80 exposed her sin to the congregation.
"Why do l love red, mother?" asked
Hetty, one day.
Because you have never had any shoes
since you wore the worlds red ones"
"Why can't wear shoesr'
I'VE are too poor"
''Where are the red shoes, motherP"
"Put away"
If we couldn't afford any other shoes,
would it be wicked to wear themf'
I'VE can't afford them, Hetty. That day I
took you to meeting in the red Shoes it was
because had spent our money to get them,
and could buy no more"
when am l to have shoes, mammal"
II don't know. II you had never worn
any shoes we might be in the communion
now and young men would come to see You
and you might marry one Of them, who
could earn money and dress you. But
have given up hope, my child They treated
me 20 cruelty can't repent and 20 TO the
meeting any moro. Ny heart is hard and
bsss shall die alone and poor. God must
taks care Of you"
Ths impenitence Of those who have no
ofhsr life than religion and are violently cast
out = propoFtionate TO their former zeal.
RSndsEica Arnold neither made nor received
on the subject Of her one
n0t a. commission, but looked upon the
Dunkm faith - al shs recognized. and that
he FeooGnfssd only to hate II.
A. . punkR shs hsd bssn barred out from
nth end Heaven. They had done II, and
lsGia1sd outlsw5y upon her innoosnt child.
~ kneW th6t Il vas done In accordance
Nh their psinGpaa, and this consistency
= f@uelty sf6ooed be- - . woman hears ths
l1n1enns ~ IL lav. and. pFsparing tomnss.
~ ~ ju1Cp and The cote.
Hf1e ka1 ~ svsr known q any but IL
DnEH uoIiA lying beEs n ~ Maryland
~ NM <boslR with ~ shuDdant sweoB
~ hgeaA, Win coid msets and |
RGl00 : ~ piepiohing = ~ eold na11-
- Uoof bona M and GlsiR